


Jukebox Hero

by secretagentfan



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Diners, Curses, Jukeboxes, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22547080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretagentfan/pseuds/secretagentfan
Summary: “We’re being haunted by a diner.”“You’re being followed,” Shion confirmed. “I’m being trapped.”Magical Diner AU. Forks are modified, jukeboxes are repaired, and curses, as it turns out, provide some rather delicious meals.
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 56
Collections: Myths and Legends of No. 6





	Jukebox Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2019 No. 6 Zine: Myths and Legends of No. 6! I'm so excited to finally share this bad boy. This bizarre little AU has been in my heart for a while now.
> 
> Definitely check out the zine and get it if you're into it; it's really something special. This fic has some ADORABLE ART to go with it, so that alone is worth checking it out for.

The facts were these: Nezumi hadn’t slept in the same bed or area in about 4 years. Shion, on the other hand, had never once left the town he grew up in. Nezumi wandered; Shion stayed in one place, and every day they met to have lunch at 2pm on the dot at the same diner. 

Magic, as it turned out, was real, frustratingly banal, and closely tied to eating establishments. Shion was far too accepting of it.

When Nezumi walked inside their diner, the familiar door chime sounding behind him, Shion stood up immediately. He had been sitting in one of the red plush booths—empty, of course, like the rest of the place—and he had a notebook open in front of him. His cardigan, an awful color Nezumi could only describe as “off-mustard,” hung loosely off his shoulders. Nezumi would never understand his fashion sense: Shion possessed the kind of tenacity and intelligence that made him capable of tearing down mountains with a well-placed statement, and yet decided to dress like a kindly grandfather on a Sunday stroll. 

Nothing about them matched. Nothing about them had ever matched. It didn’t help that today Nezumi was coming from a stuffy island situated near a volcano and was wearing as few clothes as possible to keep cool in the relentless heat. He was about as far away from _old man sweater_ as he could get.

“Nezumi! I’m glad you’re here, I have questions.”

Shion always had questions. It was one of his most frustrating qualities. Nezumi prided himself on being as forthcoming as a brick wall, but Shion’s questions were essentially battering rams—if he wanted them to stop coming, he’d have to answer one or two or twenty.

“I only give my measurements to costume designers,” Nezumi replied. Shion waved the comment away with his hand. 

“You know that’s not it.” His fingers drummed against his dark green notebook. Friendly smile unwavering, he turned to face the projection screen on the front counter. “I’ll make it worth your while, and get you lunch like usual. What would you like?”

The phrase “like usual” made Nezumi’s skin crawl. There shouldn’t be a “usual,” not for curses, or “curse partners” as Shion had taken to calling them. Nezumi’s traitorous stomach spoke for him anyway, and the words “whatever that soup was last time” escaped him without his permission. 

Shion hardly reacted, already punching in the order on the projection of his specialized menu.

“Minestrone, got it. Can you order us some hot water from your menu?”

“Why the hell do you want hot water?”

“I brought tea bags. Since we eat so much bread and soup, I thought we could have tea with them this time.”

This time. Nezumi could kill him. “For someone working on breaking this curse, you’ve sure made yourself at home in it.”

“There are worse curses. Some curses don’t provide you with personalized menus. At least our curses make having lunch significantly easier.”

They watched as the bowls of minestrone materialized impossibly on the table in front of them. Shion pushed the projection screen over to Nezumi. The menu changed, recalculating upon arrival. Nezumi’s menu hardly deserved its title as it only contained two items: _dried meat_ and _hot_ _water_. Nezumi scowled, pulled a pen out of his pocket, and tapped in his order. He never liked the idea of touchscreens—too easy to steal fingerprints. Magical touchscreens were just about the worst thing he could think of. 

“Speak for your own menu, Shion. I could live without the unbridled decadence mine provides.”

To punctuate his sarcasm, two rusted tin cups of hot water appeared next to the porcelain bowls of minestrone. Shion was unfazed, dropping tea bags in each of them.

“You know, Nezumi, just because I’m utilizing the materials we’ve been given, doesn’t mean I don’t want to break our curses.”

“Sure. Nice double negative.”

"My grammar is correct."

"Still unnecessarily confusing."

Shion sighed, and climbed into the booth facing him. He leaned forward on his elbows, gaze piercing in a way that never failed to make Nezumi feel skinless. Not a day went by that Nezumi did not regret lecturing him on looking someone in the eye when making a demand. “I provided a meal, now you have to answer my questions.”

Relentless. Nezumi broke off a piece of the bread that came alongside the minestrone and stuck it in his mouth. It was warm and soft and filled with flavor in a way that Nezumi hadn’t known bread could be before Shion caught this stupid curse. He tried not to taste it.

“Technically speaking,” Nezumi chewed, “your curse provided the meal—it’s villainously opportunistic of you to bait a starving traveler with your sketchy soups and then demand payment.” 

The look on Shion’s face made it apparent that he was no longer listening to Nezumi’s complaints. He opened his notebook.

“If you really want to help me break our curses, we need to cooperate. I’m going to read you our notes from last time. To recap—”

“We’re being haunted by a diner.” 

Shion nodded, looking far too pleased to have finally gotten some engagement out of Nezumi. Nezumi drummed his fingers on the table, waiting.

“You’re being followed,” Shion confirmed. “I’m being trapped.”

Nezumi bounced the tea bag string, trying to make it steep faster. It made a rather noticeable sound, and Shion cleared his throat. Nezumi stopped. “Do go on,” Nezumi offered.

“Your curse arrived in adolescence after a difficult experience—” _one you won’t talk to me about_ , was the implication Nezumi continued to ignore. Shion continued, “—and my curse arrived last summer on the anniversary of my friend’s death.”

“But for all you know, it could have started earlier,” Nezumi provided. “Since you didn’t try to leave before then.”

Shion’s curse was odd. Both of theirs were, but Nezumi had been living with his for much longer before Shion decided to stumble into his diner several months ago. Nezumi was used to the diner being aggressive. Location meant nothing to it; it would shoehorn its way into wherever he thought to travel. One particularly unfortunate week had the diner appearing on the snowy peak of a mountain Nezumi was camping at; it nearly caused an avalanche. Shion’s diner was different: it wasn’t so much pushy, as restrictive. Shion’s entrance to the diner was located at a fixed point, right outside the limits of the city he was born and raised in. 

It was, according to Shion, a perfectly normal looking diner, matching the same outside description as Nezumi’s: an innocuous wooden building with the word “DINER” lit in flickering magenta lights. The problem was that when Shion tried to drive past it, he couldn’t. The scenery would loop for a minute before placing Shion and his car back in front of the diner—barring him from exiting the city. 

The day Shion finally slid into the diner had been a rainy one for him, and Nezumi would never forget how he had looked, shivering impossibly on the black-and-white checkered floor. He had been soaking wet, with cotton-swab hair sticking to his cheeks: all red-rimmed eyes and squeaking shoes. 

Before Shion, no one had appeared in the diner. Not once. Maybe that was why that day, Nezumi had let him fall asleep in one of the diner booths, grudgingly laying his jacket over Shion’s shoulders. 

“Right,” Shion said, breaking Nezumi out of his thoughts. The asshole had stolen his jacket, and continued to forget to return it, even though they met often after that, and even more now that Shion had taken up the mantle of “curse breaker.” “You’re right. I don’t know how long I’ve been cursed.” 

He scribbled a note in his stupid notebook, like that would somehow help. Nezumi rolled his eyes. 

“Any other obvious statements that need repeating, Inspector Shion?” 

Shion huffed. “I’m gathering information, Nezumi.” 

Shion “gathering information” was a semi-regular event. It was also one of Nezumi’s favorites, mainly because it was hilarious. The sight of Shion army-crawling under each of the diner tables, looking for any wires or sensors for the projection screens, or doing battle with the ever-present broken jukebox in the corner of the room had become commonplace enough that Nezumi would frequently bring a book and read for a while, just to laugh when Shion got frustrated at the lack of answers.

“And how’s that going for you, Shion?”

Shion scowled. Nezumi grinned.

“Magic can’t have an explanation, Shion. That’s _why_ it’s magic.”

“That might be true,” Shion allowed, bitterly. His voice took on a serious edge. “But I know curses can be broken. I have to keep believing that.”

Shion had never told Nezumi in so many words, but Nezumi figured his curse had something to do with the guilt he still carried about his friend dying, years previous. Being unable to leave the city had everything to do with her, and it was a weight he still carried now, even after he had relaxed and started his weirdo examinations.

Nezumi hated to admit it, but it did seem that their curses came from a similar source. 

That said, he wasn’t ready to start answering questions about his own anytime soon.

“I have to,” Shion repeated, but he was looking more discouraged by the second, in spite of the confidence of his words. Nezumi sipped his tea, and watched Shion’s eyes meet his for a half-moment before flicking away.

“You’re right, Shion,” Nezumi spoke up. “Curses can be broken. So stop acting like you doubt what you’re saying.”

Shion’s eyes returned to Nezumi’s with an intensity that made something squirm in the pit of his stomach. “Do you think you’ll ever break yours?”

Nezumi didn’t let himself think about it.

“I think you need to start smaller. Try changing something in this place, before you try to eliminate the whole concept altogether. Curses weaken easier than they break.”

Shion’s hands slammed on the table; Nezumi very narrowly avoided spilling tea in his lap.

“What the hell, Shion!?”

“The jukebox!” 

“What the hell about the jukebox?”

Shion was standing now, already weaving through the booths and tables and standing in front of the broken jukebox at the corner of the room.

“Nezumi, it’s the only thing here that doesn’t work perfectly.”

“So?”

“It’s exactly what you’re talking about. It’s something small that we can change. So let’s fix it.”

Nezumi slowly stood up, eyeing the rickety jukebox. Shion was already kneeling in front of it, clearly trying to figure out how to go about dismantling it. Nezumi wasn’t thinking about the jukebox. He was thinking about what Shion had just said.

When, exactly, had they become a “we”?

***

Shion, being Shion, had bought a book on jukebox repair. Shion, being Shion, had also started disassembling the jukebox without warning. So much for being a _team_.

This unexpected independence was fine, as the word “team” made the hair on the back of Nezumi’s neck prickle, but it _was_ jarring to walk through the door and be greeted with the sound of Shion squawking:

“Don’t move, Nezumi!”

Nezumi didn’t. His hair was still wet from his recent swim in a natural lake. His right foot hovered over a thin glass tube which Shion quickly swiped up. Shion’s cardigan (musty brown this time) was in a messy heap next to the jukebox, and the white shirt he was wearing underneath had been unbuttoned several buttons. Nezumi wasn’t entirely sure why the sight of Shion’s exposed collarbone was so startling, but it was. Between the cardigans and the high-necked button-downs, Nezumi figured that his brain was just stuck wrapping around the fact that Shion actually _had_ skin.

“Thank you, Nezumi. These are called vacuum tubes, and I haven’t found a place to order them online yet. Two of them are already broken in the machine. I don’t know what we’d do if we lost the third.”

“Sure.”

“Apparently vacuum tubes break quite often. Isn’t that interesting?”

Nezumi did not find it particularly interesting, but he figured he should still reply, as staring at Shion’s collarbone was beginning to make something in the back of his head scream _caution_. 

“How long have you been at this?”

“A few hours. I’m making progress, I think. Theoretically.” Shion hesitated. He added: “Probably.”

“Don’t talk yourself up so much, now.”

“I’m figuring it out, Nezumi. Did you bring the wrench?”

Nezumi, had, in fact, brought the wrench. He passed it to Shion and used the opportunity to get a look inside the jukebox. It was a mess of wires, dust, and disks. His knee-jerk impulse was to blow on it to clear away some of the dust, but a more intelligent part of him pointed out that that was an awful idea. There was an empty space in the corner of the machine where the vacuum tubes must have originally resided. The fact that Shion had managed to extract anything from this piece of junk spoke well of him. Nezumi was impressed.

“How did you manage to get this out without a wrench?”

“I modified a fork.”

Nezumi shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. He was no longer impressed. 

“You couldn’t have just waited for the wrench?”

“I couldn’t be certain you would bring it, and I didn’t want to miss lunch with you to work on the jukebox.”

“Miss lunch with me?”

Shion was standing now, looking at Nezumi like the answer was obvious. “Yes, lunch. You always come at 2 o’clock. I wanted to eat together, and if you had given me the wrench, I’d have felt obligated to get to work instead. Aren’t you hungry? I’ll get us something.”

Something very small in Nezumi’s stomach turned, and a feeling bubbled up in his chest. He wasn’t sure about this. Shion didn’t wait for his response, as usual. He plowed on, putting their orders into the projection screen. From this angle, Nezumi could see that Shion’s pants were wrecked from all the dust from the jukebox, but he was smiling, a quiet, very Shion smile. 

“You should get us tea, again. I liked that before.”

No, Nezumi wasn’t sure at all about this feeling. Still, it felt like the bread Shion ordered for them that day at the usual time: warm, new, and indescribable.

***

Fixing the jukebox proved to be a mammoth undertaking. The last vacuum tube exploded around the fourth day of repairs, and most of the wires were too frayed to be effective. The entire interior needed polishing and replacing—Shion and Nezumi had their work cut out for them.

It was fun, Nezumi bitterly admitted to himself. He was reminded of rewarding childhood days spent in his musty garage before it burnt down: making basic machines, figuring out for himself what worked and what didn’t. He made the mistake of bringing parts of this up to Shion, who seemed to glow every time Nezumi shared something even slightly personal. He was easily pleased, and always offered some story in return about bakery life. Nezumi hoped he wasn’t writing all of their history down in his curse-breaking notebook somewhere, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. 

Nezumi didn’t mind as much as he thought he would. After all, once Shion learned Nezumi knew how to work with machines, he never failed to provide whatever odd piece of equipment Nezumi suggested they might use in repairs. He didn’t make a scene over it either—simply left the equipment for Nezumi on one of the counters with a small handwritten note saying where he had ordered it, and the price (at Nezumi’s insistence) so Nezumi could determine if his “knowledge and labor” would really cover the cost of materials.

Nezumi took to arriving at the diner early in order to sneak in some work on the stubborn noise machine and try out or disassemble whatever contraption Shion had ordered for him. Shion would typically arrive not long after him and help out, before yawning and inevitably requesting they settle down for lunch. 

“Nezumi, have you ever eaten so much you’ve gotten sick?” Shion asked one day.

“When you first met me I was barely subsisting on dried meat and hot water: you do the math. Bountiful meals have never been a part of my—don’t aim that face at me, I’m not a charity case.” 

“I know you’re not. I just think I want you to be.”

“You want me to be a charity case?”

“No, I want you to be full.”

Nezumi raised both eyebrows. “I’m not starving.”

“Of course not. But not starving isn’t being full. I want you to feel full. Filled. With the things you love.”

Nezumi didn’t know how to reply to that. His heart, judging by the speed at which it was beating, didn’t either. His cheeks felt warm. Standing on the precipice between something horribly inviting and panic, he grabbed Shion’s bread off his plate and casually shoved it in his mouth. The offended glare Shion shot at him was the most rewarding thing he’d experienced in weeks.

“That was mine!”

“Hmm, I’m still not full. I think I’ll have to try your cake too—”

_“Nezumi!”_

Shion threw a balled-up napkin at him. Nezumi laughed, and it was easy in a way it hadn’t ever been before—maybe full, even. Maybe.

***

When the time to test the jukebox came, Nezumi was wearing a heavy wool scarf and jacket, and Shion had de-aged from grandfather to aspiring Boy Scout in a loose t-shirt and khaki shorts. He still couldn’t figure out why Nezumi would snicker every time he saw him.

They stood in front of the jukebox: Nezumi feigning indifference, and Shion clutching their bag of quarters with obvious apprehension. 

“If it doesn’t work, I really don’t know what we can do,” Shion started, buying time.

“If it doesn’t work, something’s probably messed up the motor beyond repair.”

“What do we do then?”

Nezumi rubbed his forehead. “Keep working at it. Or find some other way to weaken our curses.”

“Right, our curses.” Shion’s response was oddly subdued. They hadn’t talked about their curses in a while, distracted by vacuum tubes, lunch, and dust-covered wires. Nezumi nudged Shion with his shoulder. Shion clearly missed that it was a nudge and leaned into his arm. Nezumi blinked, arm going around Shion’s shoulders in a way that felt natural enough. He gave his right shoulder a fleeting squeeze.

“It’s just a jukebox, Shion. Small steps.”

Shion’s eyes held Nezumi’s for a moment, and he smiled, slowly. 

“You’re right, this is a small step. We still have plenty of time.”

Shion stepped out of the embrace, and one by one, added the quarters to the machine, each making a satisfying “clink” on their way down. Shion scrolled through the songs, reading each title, before growing impatient and just hitting the button. 

The jukebox sprang to life, filling the usually silent diner with sound.

For a moment neither of them moved. A low crooning voice sang out some classic love song, and Shion seemed to burst.

“It works!”

“Hold on,” Nezumi warned, holding up a hand. “It could stop.”

Shion paused his celebrations, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him before. Nezumi kept his hand in the air. He stood in silence for a moment, waiting for something to go wrong. 

Shion grabbed his hand.

“It works, Nezumi.”

It did work. The song didn’t stumble or slow, or do anything wrong, really. It played all the way to the end. Nezumi felt himself smile in disbelief and tighten his grip on Shion’s hand. 

“We should celebrate somehow—” Shion began, but Nezumi had already pulled him into a dance.

It was an effortless choice: Shion smelled like buttered rolls and folded sheets, creature comforts Nezumi didn’t dare let himself have, and it was so easy to keep him close. Shion clearly wasn’t much of a dancer, his feet awkward and stumbling at first. Still, he caught on quickly, and with a pleased, flushed smile that Nezumi felt spread through his chest. 

“How’s this for a celebration?” Nezumi offered. Their rhythm was all wrong, and there was stupid giddiness in the air between them. They likely weren’t any closer to their goal; this was a celebration for the smallest step in a whole line of tasks to break curses, of all things. Nezumi knew it didn’t make sense to celebrate, but… But.

“It’s the best,” Shion replied, pressing closer until Nezumi could feel his heartbeat against his own. 

They danced until they ran out of quarters.


End file.
